Can a character take free action out of her turn?

[LucasB]

So.... This monk is lvl 10 with various style's under his belt. There is nothing that can touch him at least nothing melee or attack wise.

Here's the thing if I manage to hit him, he uses his combat style Master feat (free action) and switches to his Snake Style from there he rolls his D 20. With his sense motive. 15(D20) + 14 for sense motive. = 29 touch AC. Of course he opts to use this number as his touch AC. How in hell do you hit a 29 touch AC? Hell even a Tetori monk can't touch him with his grappling and unarmed strikes.

Any idea's as to why this feat is broken? Or am I just not reading it right? Can you use a Combat style master's feats free action to switch between monk styles when a monster is in the middle of attacking you?

Can a character take free action out of her turn to switch monk styles using Combat Style master feat?

Snake Style

Benefit: You gain a +2 bonus on Sense Motive checks, and you can deal piercing damage with your unarmed strikes. While using the Snake Style feat, when an opponent targets you with a melee or ranged attack, you can spend an immediate action to make a Sense Motive check. You can use the result as your AC or touch AC against that attack. You must be aware of the attack and not flat-footed.

[bigrig107]

Nope, Immediate actions are the only actions you can take out of turn, minus specific exceptions.
And Combat Style Master has no such exceptions.

Also, note that as you only get one immediate action per round, the monk can only use this truck against monsters/enemies with one attack roll. And at level 10, there shouldn't be many of those.

[Gilfalas]

The only free action that I am aware of that can be done in other peoples turns is speaking.

Otherwise you need to use an immediate action (or a hero point if you use those rules) to do anything when it is not your turn.

[vhok]

if he is already in snake style then he can do it once per round(remember for immediate actions you eat your swift action for your following turn).
but no he cannot free action to change styles off turn with that particular feat.

[Bob Bob Bob]

You can generally only take an action on your turn. Exceptions are talking and reloading a weapon (I think). You'll notice the Speak entry under free actions specifically says "In general, speaking is a free action that you can perform even when it isn't your turn." Why would it say this if you always could?

As for Snake Style, it's an immediate action, so no swift action next turn and you only get 1/round. In addition, you have to use it before the attack roll (so you can't use it to stop a crit). Against single attacks by single monsters it's great. Against a full attack or more than one monster, it's a bonus against only one attack. It does absolutely nothing against a grapple (combat maneuvers target CMD). Oh, and AC is not derived from touch AC. If they choose to use their roll for touch AC and the attack is "longsword to the face", they've wasted their 1/round ability and use their normal AC.

Then there's the fact that your player apparently rolled well. d20+14 is average 24 (.5). A CR 10 monsters has an average attack bonus of 17, capping at 22. They hit 40% of the time even against your player's roll of 15. So... it's normal for them to hit him, even with using Combat Style Master wrong.

[LucasB]

So lets say it's the monks turn and he runs around the monster forcing attacks of opportunities and countering all the attacks of opportunity that the monster just let on the monk. Lets say a monster hits him on the monsters attack of opportunity can the monk still switch out to snake style because it is still his turn.

Where do you draw the line from players playing the system on broken rules that abuse it to no end.

[vhok]

snake style has ONE USE PER ROUND, PEROID. it costs 1 immediate. he cannot just spamm it, it is a very mild skill. not even kind of overpowered in the least. read this a few times and you will understand much better how mild of a skill it truly is.

Immediate Actions

Much like a swift action, an immediate action consumes a very small amount of time but represents a larger expenditure of effort and energy than a free action. However, unlike a swift action, an immediate action can be performed at any time—even if it's not your turn. Casting feather fall is an immediate action, since the spell can be cast at any time.

Using an immediate action on your turn is the same as using a swift action and counts as your swift action for that turn. You cannot use another immediate action or a swift action until after your next turn if you have used an immediate action when it is not currently your turn (effectively, using an immediate action before your turn is equivalent to using your swift action for the coming turn). You also cannot use an immediate action if you are flat-footed.

[Gilfalas]

LucasB wrote:

So lets say it's the monks turn and he runs around the monster forcing attacks of opportunities and countering all the attacks of opportunity that the monster just let on the monk. Lets say a monster hits him on the monsters attack of opportunity can the monk still switch out to snake style because it is still his turn.

Where do you draw the line from players playing the system on broken rules that abuse it to no end.

A monk can switch his style as a free action but free actions, unlike immediate actions cannot interrupt someone else's attack as far as I can tell. So if he is hit and then tries to switch stance, it is already too late. He has been hit. He can try to use the ability on the NEXT attack before he knows the result as listed in the feat.

Snake style specifically says it must be used WHEN TARGETED by an attack, that is before the attack roll even happens so he cannot know the result of the roll to make his decision and it costs an immediate action, so that means he gets one attempt per round, period. If he is not already in Snake style he cannot even do that.

Also as a side note, attacks of opportunity are OPTIONAL. You can choose NOT to take them, especially if you know that an opponent smashes you back every time you do.

Lastly movement is a single trigger for an Attack of Opportunity, no matter the distance crossed or the number of threatened squares of the same target you leave. So unless there are other abilities coming into play, him moving around an enemy in melee range only causes ONE attack of opportunity.

So it should work like this:

The monk moves around the opponent giving them ONE attack of opportunity. If the opponent takes it then he must decide BEFORE the attack is rolled if he wants to change stance to Snake style as a free action and if he wants to activate snake style as his immediate action for the round to make his roll. If he decides to use it he makes his sense motive roll and uses it for his AC.

THEN you roll the attack on the monk and see it is hits. After that the monk cannot use snake style again until the next round. As long as it is his turn he can change styles as long as they are free actions. Once his turn is done he cannot change styles at all.

Now, if he ends his round and IS in snake style but has NOT used it, then he CAN activate it ONCE as an immediate action on someone else's round to make his sense motive check. He has to make the check after it is declared on him but before the result is known So no waiting to get hit to use the roll to counter. He CANNOT use a free action on someone else's round to change stances at all, ever.

Snake style is actually not broken. How your player is using it is, and it is also wrong. Hope that helps you out.

[vhok]

also if he uses his immediate action off turn he cannot use a swift/immediate on his next turn. he has to wait till his next turn ends and then he can use an immediate and eat his next upcoming turns swift again.

[Bob Bob Bob]

So this is with Snake Fang? He gets an AoO against an opponent that misses him, he's far better off standing near the enemy and hoping for a full attack (so they use those low BAB iteratives) than provoking their best attack (AoO). Panther Style (plus Claw and Parry) does it better (if they AoO you for movement you can spend a free action to AoO them first).

Here's what he can do. At the start of his turn, spend a free action to switch to Snake Style. Move around to provoke an AoO (move action), use Snake Style (immediate action, counts as this turn's swift) to get increased AC for one hit (if he provokes more than one AoO Snake Style only works for one). Whatever standard action he wants. Spend a free to switch style. But now he's locked into whatever style he's chosen. The only action he can take outside of his turn is a free action to talk and a single immediate action. That immediate action (assuming he's using Snake Style) lets him attempt to block one attack. Just one. And if he uses it he can't use Snake Style on his turn (no swift action left, since he used it for his immediate). And as I already said, average attack of a CR 10 monster is 17, his average defense roll is 24. Even with the substitution, they'll still hit him more than 50% of the time. Heck, even if he rolls a nat 20 they'll still hit him 20% of the time.

Snake Style works against one attack. If he only fights single monsters with one attack, it might be powerful (his numbers really aren't that high). But that's it. More than one opponent, more than one attack, and Snake Style can't be used on all of them.

[The Shaman]

I played a snake stylist a few years ago.I generally found it to be ok at best, maybe a bit on the weak side for my build.

Not only is it a defense against one attack, but it also eats your next round´s swift action. At the time, I much preferred having the option to spend a ki point for an extra attack, or anything else I could get with that swift action, and my AC wasn´t horrible either.

I can see it working for some niche characters, but to me this is more of a trick up your sleeve than an actually powerful option. You would need to pump your sense motive pretty high too - maybe if you are a monk/inquisitor with monastic legacy or the inquisitor VMC for stern gaze?

[MeanMutton]

Gilfalas wrote:

Lastly movement is a single trigger for an Attack of Opportunity, no matter the distance crossed or the number of threatened squares of the same target you leave. So unless there are other abilities coming into play, him moving around an enemy in melee range only causes ONE attack of opportunity.

Leaving a threatened square provokes an attack of opportunity, not "movement". Each square you leave is a separate trigger.

[vhok]

You can only provoke each person once per movement

[Gilfalas]

MeanMutton wrote:

Leaving a threatened square provokes an attack of opportunity, not "movement". Each square you leave is a separate trigger.

Actually that is wrong. Movement/leaving a threatened square only provokes ONCE from any single enemy no matter how many times you leave squares that enemy threatens in a turn. That is confirmed by the bolded section below in the Attacks of Opportunity rules.

PFSRD on AoO's wrote:

Combat Reflexes and Additional Attacks of Opportunity

If you have the Combat Reflexes feat, you can add your Dexterity modifier to the number of attacks of opportunity you can make in a round. This feat does not let you make more than one attack for a given opportunity, but if the same opponent provokes two attacks of opportunity from you, you could make two separate attacks of opportunity (since each one represents a different opportunity). Moving out of more than one square threatened by the same opponent in the same round doesn't count as more than one opportunity for that opponent. All these attacks are at your full normal attack bonus.